Abe and I met at a camp for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and we fell in love under the summer sun. We spent months enjoying the friendships we built with our campers, hardly noticing the beating Texas heat, the discomfort of mosquito bites on our skin, or the rubbery dining hall food sitting heavy in our bellies.
This place felt like another world—a world where we could suddenly be ourselves without restraint, because we saw our campers dazzling the world with their uniqueness. It made us unafraid of our own. Abe and I both felt strongly that, although a summer camp setting may not be realistic for everyday life, the idea of people with and without disabilities engaging in meaningful relationships should not feel so out of reach beyond the camp gates.
After bonding over our shared love for people with disabilities—and later realizing that we had both been thinking about adoption since childhood—it became clear that these values would be central to our lives. Unsurprisingly to our friends and family, we decided to pursue them together.
We dated long-distance across time zones while I lived in Asia, volunteering full-time in a family-style foster home for children with disabilities. As much as we wanted to be together, we both understood that the children I would meet would become very dear to me and that, though I went alone, the experience would deeply shape our life together—which, of course, it did. Abe came to visit for several weeks to meet the children, and he looked at me knowingly as he did. He understood that living in close relationships with people with disabilities was not only what we wanted, but what we felt the world needed.
After my time abroad, we wasted little before tying the knot. I walked under arching oak trees along an aisle made of sawdust, where our friends from camp—fellow staff and campers alike—stood like oaks themselves. My very first camper-friend was there, shouting my camp nickname as I walked, breaking through the music playing in the forest. We would have had it no other way.
Abe had dreamed of becoming a physician since second grade, and he is one of the few who actually become what they set out to be in elementary school. In our first years of marriage, he began medical school while I worked long hours at a job I was love-struck with. I found an incredible group of people launching a nonprofit that provides meaningful work and a place of belonging for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
A few months after finding my footing there, we welcomed our first employee who wasn’t part of the original group—and, to put it simply, she changed my life. She loved and lived her life contrarily. She acted on urges others suppressed—dancing when she wanted, smiling or frowning without hesitation, often doing the unexpected. I was struck by her ability to live so freely while I was often bound by worry or self-consciousness when all I wanted was to be free. I admired her authenticity and strove to mimic her inhibition. Through friendship with her, that is exactly what I gained.
Meanwhile, Abe studied tirelessly and often spent long hours alone, while I came home with stories that sent us into fits of laughter and filled us with excitement about my new friends–he did not want to miss out on this. Abe began visiting my workplace as often as he could—during his lunch hour and any spare moment he could squeeze in—because he understood. He saw what I saw: people moving through the world and leaving behind colors we had never known.
Months later, another individual joined the community, and we hit it off immediately. He loved to laugh and dance when the song was right and though he used few words, his expressions said everything. We had lived very different lives, but we shared something—we both trusted only a small pool of people. It didn’t take long before we each found a place in that pool for one another.
When Abe met him and they greeted one another, a stranger would have told you they were old pals. The three of us became a goofy little trio, spending time walking at the lake and going to matinee movies. We laughed an impossible amount. We spoke little, yet communicated constantly, and we knew what we had was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of friendship.
Both of these friends happened to have Down syndrome. And, as we look across the table of our lives, gathering the most influential people to us, a theme continues: many of them have Down syndrome. We could not have planned it. It just happened. And we would have it no other way.
We grew enthusiastic about the idea of adopting a child with Down syndrome (though, if you asked my sister, she would tell you I had been dreaming about this since I was 18). We knew our child would not be a replica of any friend, but we felt certain they would bring something extraordinary to the world—and we wanted in on that.
After a home study we worked hard to get, many hours applying for grants, readying our physical space, and creating a family profile that was supposed to somehow express this longing we had that was so deep, our adoption profile went live with the National Down syndrome Adoption Network (NDSAN) on January 1. We presented to several families making an adoption plan for their child with Down syndrome over the next few weeks and would float through days that there was a possibility. Then in mid-March, we received an email about a family that immediately caused my jaw to drop. I called Abe at work with a deep certainty: we had just received news about our daughter. We had matched.
After two months of being swept up in daydreams about our baby, Abe faced a two-day board exam without access to his phone. We had our bags packed, ready to leave if she arrived early, but I prepared myself to go alone if I couldn’t reach him—which I desperately hoped I wouldn’t have to do. I held my breath for two days until Abe finally called to say he was finished. Phew!
We drove ten hours, full of jitters, to spend a few days with our daughter’s birth family before she was born. Just hours before we arrived, after planning where to meet, the birth family told us that we would need to meet them directly at the hospital because our daughter would be born that day.
Breathlessly, we made it to the hospital on a warm May evening that seemed to glow especially gold. We were given wristbands that read “Adoptive Parent” which felt like extravagant bangles and made us cry with esteem. Our daughter’s birth father met us warmly and guided us to the NICU while lovingly congratulating us on becoming parents.
We trembled down the hallway to approach the room and then, all of a sudden, a nurse placed the most beautiful thing I have ever seen into my shaking arms as our tears gently welcomed her into our family—and we stepped into hers.
In this moment, I see a film reel of friends’ faces in this tiny being and I am undone. I hear that music again from my wedding day–the one so perfectly interrupted by my friend. I am walking through the forest but this time it’s my daughter’s voice that splits the sound.
And trust me when I say, we would have it absolutely no other way.
We Wouldn’t Have it Any Other Way – Down Syndrome Adoption
March 21, 2026
